Originally posted by Blk560:
Actually, the road courses prove to people who follow top-level professional motorsports that the 'stock cars' are among the poorest handling of purpose-built race cars, and hardly any better than some production-based race cars.
An objective comparison of fast qualifiers at shared venues between Nextel Cup and NASCAR's Grand Am road racing series bears this out. The ~550hp Daytona Prototypes (which we all know are by no means near the pinnacle of speed and handling for a sports prototype) outqualify the 800hp 'stock cars' by 5 seconds on average over the Watkins Glen short course. But even though both are purpose-built tube-frame racers I suppose that's an unfair comparison to many since it's a 'stock car' against a prototype. So, moving on to the production class, where the average sub-400hp Rolex GT production (!) qualifier is about 5 seconds back of the average Nextel Cup qualifier, and the fastest GT qualifier is within 1 second of the slowest 'stocker'. For cars that rolled off a factory assembly line and having to make do with design constraints and performance limitations you'd never force into a purpose-built racecar, they do an awful lot with their 400hp and light weight to get that close to an 800hp 'stock car'.
But in the end, it's whatever floats your boat (or rolling billboard...). It's all good...
You have to recognize how good both those GT cars and the nextel cup cars handle. As you said, the nextel cup cars are faster, and look at what they're doing that with. The GT cars have some technology that is more advanced. The GT cars are also more aerodynamic. I didn't say they were the top dog, I said they handle good. Is that not a correct statement?
98.5 SVT
91 Escort GT (almost sold)
96 ATX Zetec (i brake to watch you swerve)
FS: SVT rear sway bar
WTB: Very cheap beater
CEG Dragon Run - October 13-15
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